Why Terrance Howard Was Dumped From Iron Man 2 – He Was Bad And Over Paid

There has been a lot of discussion on the surprise news that Terrance Howard was dumped from Iron Man 2 and replaced by (the superior actor) Don Cheadle. Some hate the news, some (like myself) thought it was a shame, but happy to see Cheadle in the role. Well… according to Entertainment Weekly some new information is surfacing regarding WHY Howard was dumped.

Turns out it was for 2 reasons.

#1 – He was the highest paid actor on the movie
Yes, according to Entertainment Weekly, Terrance Howard was signed for MORE than Robert Downey Jr and everyone else on the movie. This isn’t too surprising because the studio wasn’t sure how the public would react to Downy at the time and Howard was, quite frankly, the bigger name. Still… a minor character getting more than the leads?

#2 – Howard was difficult on set and bad in the film
It’s being reported now that the studio, and director Jon Favreau himself did not like the performance Terrance Howard gave nor liked working with him that much. According to the story, Favreau spent a lot of time cutting and re-editing Howard’s scenes to make them work. It was so bad, that even though the original plan was to have a BIGGER role for Howard in the second film, Favreau had been working to make Howard’s role SMALLER. This was the final straw that made the studio pull the trigger and make the change change. If the director isn’t happy with the actor and he’s making him a smaller part but still be the highest paid??? You’d make the change too.

Anyway, my opinion of the situation is still pretty much the same. All other things being equal I would have liked to have seen Howard back as War Machine… but I’m even happier having Don Cheadle in the part now.

Interesting how they were making his role smaller, but Faverau made his part bigger in this film and I think he was the Jar-Jar Binks of this movie, IMO. If they cut out most of his dialog from IM2, it would’ve been better.

Cheadle was good in this, but he was about as bland as Rhoades was in IM1. Either way, you could see why he and RDj got along in the first movie. In the second one, you didn’t really see that until the ending sequences where he was in the suit and it was being controlled by Whiplash. Then, he was good.

BTW, that Birthday Party scene was still the worse part of the whole movie. :)

Fav made his role as the driver “bigger” and he still has less than 10 minutes of screen time. Happy Hogan was Tony’s driver but he was also his friend. The character deserves more screen time to at least show he isn’t just a prop in the background. They added all they needed to.

Chloe

Huh? well yes that is understandable, but i still think that terrance howard should had been kept in the second movie. oh well :-(